Kate Beckinsale sets hearts racing in little lace dress at Spirit Award nominations

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 10:56 PM on 29th November 2011

Kate Beckinsale earned herself a best dressed nod as she arrived to announced the Independent Spirit Award nominations in Hollywood today.

The 38-year-old actress, who has a daughter Lily, 12, with ex Michael Sheen, cut a stylish figure as she posed in a thigh-skimming lace dress and nude heels.

She joined actor Anthony Mackie and organiser Sean McManus at The London hotel for the early morning event.

Leggy lady: Kate Beckinsale attended the Independent Spirit Award nominations in Hollywood today

The British actress, who is married to director Len Wiseman, will next star in Underworld Awakening the latest installment of her big budget action franchise, but today took time out to lend her support to independent film.

Beckinsale revealed that silent movie The Artist and the doomsday drama Take Shelter were both up for five nominations each, including best picture.

Also in the running for best picture were the cancer tale 50/50, the action thriller Drive and the family dramas Beginners and The Descendants.

And the nominees are: The brunette was joined on stage by actor Anthony Mackie

A black-and-white throwback to early Hollywood, The Artist also earned a lead-actor nomination for Jean Dujardin as a silent film star whose career crumbles as the sound era takes over in the late 1920s.

The film grabbed directing and screenplay nominations for Michel Hazanavicius, along with a cinematography slot for Guillaume Schiffman.

Take Shelter star Michael Shannon earned a lead-actor nomination as a family man who comes unhinged amid visions of a coming apocalyptic storm.

Co-star Jessica Chastain was nominated for supporting actress, while Take Shelter also received nominations for director Jeff Nichols and a prize for emerging producers for Sophia Lin.

In good spirits: The pair posed up together on the red carpet before taking to the podium

Other lead-actor contenders were Ryan Gosling for Drive, Demian Bichir for the immigrant drama A Better Life and Woody Harrelson for the police story Rampart.

The lead-actress field included Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn.

Also nominated were Lauren Ambrose for the single-mom story Think of Me, Rachael Harris for the road-trip comedy Natural Selection, Adepero Oduye for the teen drama Pariah and Elizabeth Olsen as an escapee from a cult in Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Blonde ambition: Michelle Williams has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role in My Week With Marilyn

Snubbed: The Descendants received numerous nominations but George Clooney was overlooked

Independent Spirit Awards - Key nominations

Best Feature
50/50 - Producers: Evan Goldberg, Ben Karlin, Seth Rogen
Beginners - Producers: Miranda de Pencier, Lars Knudsen, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Jay Van Hoy
Drive - Producers: Michel Litvak, John Palermo, Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker, Adam Siegel
Take Shelter - Producers: Tyler Davidson, Sophia Lin
The Artist - Producer: Thomas Langmann
The Descendants - Producers: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
Mike Mills - Beginners
Jeff Nichols - Take Shelter
Alexander Payne - The Descendants
Nicolas Winding Refn - Drive

Best Screenplay
Joseph Cedar - Footnote
Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
Tom McCarthy - Win Win
Mike Mills - Beginners
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash - The Descendants

Best Female Lead
Lauren Ambrose - Think of Me
Rachael Harris - Natural Selection
Adepero Oduye - Pariah
Elizabeth Olsen - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn

Best Male Lead
Demián Bichir - A Better Life
Jean Dujardin - The Artist
Ryan Gosling - Drive
Woody Harrelson - Rampart
Michael Shannon - Take Shelter

Best Supporting Female
Jessica Chastain - Take Shelter
Anjelica Huston - 50/50
Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs
Harmony Santana - Gun Hill Road
Shailene Woodley - The Descendants

Best Supporting Male
Albert Brooks - Drive
John Hawkes - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Christopher Plummer - Beginners
John C. Reilly - Cedar Rapids
Corey Stoll - Midnight in Paris

Presented by the cinema group Film Independent, the Spirit Awards will be handed out the day before the Academy Awards, at an afternoon ceremony on Feb. 25. The show will air later that night on IFC.

The Spirit Awards nominations are one of the first key honours on the long road to the Oscars, which often are dominated by big Hollywood films but generally include many nominees from the independent film world.

Last season's top winner at the Spirit Awards, Black Swan, also was a hit with Academy voters, earning a best-picture nomination there and winning the best-actress Oscar for Natalie Portman.

Notably absent from the Spirit Awards lineup was Academy Award winner George Clooney, considered a strong prospect for a best-actor nomination at the Oscars for The Descendants.

Like Crazy, the top winner at last January's Sundance Film Festival, was completely overlooked, receiving no nominations.

The stars of Woody Allen's romantic fantasy Midnight in Paris - among them Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Oscar winners Marion Cotillard and Kathy Bates - missed out, too. But their relatively unknown co-star, Corey Stoll, picked up a supporting-actor nomination for his scene-stealing role as Ernest Hemingway.

Clooney's young co-star Shailene Woodley, who plays his daughter in The Descendants, earned a supporting-actress slot.

Nominees in the supporting categories included Christopher Plummer for Beginners, Oscar winner Anjelica Huston for 50/50, Albert Brooks for Drive and John Hawkes for Martha Marcy May Marlene, who won the supporting-actor prize at last season's Spirit Awards for Winter's Bone.

Along with Hazanavicius and Nichols, directing nominees were Mike Mills for Beginners, Alexander Payne for The Descendants and Nicolas Winding Refn for Drive.

Spirit Awards nominees were chosen by panels of film professionals. Members of Film Independent, who include filmmakers and movie fans, are eligible to vote on the winners.

Eligible films must have production budgets of no more than $20 million and meet independent-cinema criteria that include uniqueness of vision and original, provocative subject matter.


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